A state-owned Chinese company said Friday it plans to pour nearly $15 billion into a giant memory chip factory, as Beijing seeks to create homegrown semiconductor champions to reduce reliance on foreign technology. Tongfang Guoxin Electronics Co. aims to invest 93.8 billion yuan ($14.8 billion) in the plant, it said in a filing with the Shenzhen stock exchange. Tongfang Guoxin is controlled by Tsinghua Holdings Co., the commercial arm of Tsinghua University in Beijing, and ultimately China's education ministry. China is regularly accused of cyberspying by the West but says it is a victim of hacking, and it has been encouraging research and development of homegrown semiconductor technologies as part of its "national information security strategy".

China needed to overcome "long-time restrictions imposed by the United States, Japan and Europe" over semiconductor materials and equipment, the ministry of industry and information technology said in a statement in June.